Sand screens are used in many types of wells to prevent formation sand from being produced to the surface and to thus avoid detrimental, operational issues, e.g. erosion of equipment. Sand screens often are used in combination with gravel packs which also serve to remove particulates from inflowing fluids, e.g. inflowing hydrocarbon fluids. To bypass annular bridging during gravel packing operations, alternate path technology is sometimes employed to improve the gravel packing of voids which can otherwise exist due to formation of the annular bridges. Alternate path technology provides an alternate path along which gravel slurry can flow in addition to the normal flow of gravel slurry along the primary path in the wellbore annulus. The alternate flow path may be formed with tubes which run parallel to a sand screen assembly base pipe. However, coupling the sequential alternate path tubes when the sequential base pipe joints are connected can present substantial alignment and connection challenges. The coupling of sequential alternate path tubes also can incur substantial costs, including the costs of rig time during coupling of the alternate path tubes as the sand screen assembly string is assembled and run in hole.